Last week there were two big events. One concluded; the other opened. Both caught the imagination of the public and the media. TV swooned over them. Newspapers tracked them relentlessly. And social media found new hashtags to pursue. One was the 10th edition of a sporting event. (Truth be told, it’s not just a sporting event. It’s India’s biggest festival-- the IPL, often touted as cricket’s grandest flourish.) The other event just began. The 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival as the high point of world cinema and the French Riviera’s last hurrah before a tired, fumbling Europe ties itself down to more mundane issues of politics, currency and immigration.

But, as in life, not all things we celebrate are what they are. Let’s look at the IPL; the grand finale happened last Sunday. Cricket addicts swear by it and follow it with such ardor that the broadcaster sells out the entire ad inventory even before the first ball of the league is bowled. This year, I hear, the non-linear digital platform was also sold out. The broadcaster will clock an income of Rs 1,300 crore against last year’s Rs 1,100, an 18% rise. Fabulous, by any standard. The mighty BCCI, which sees the IPL as the jewel in its crown, earned Rs 211 crore from it last year, which is 15% of its annual income of Rs 1,365 crore.

To get a sense of the increase in IPL’s importance consider BCCI’s balance sheet nine years back when the surplus from IPL was barely Rs 15 crore, 2% of its income. Now let’s have some fun. Pitch the IPL’s impressive stats against the stats of another industry based entirely on the IPL’s infrastructure, a sentient byproduct. No, those who run it are not celebrities. They have no sponsors, no ad time to sell. No one knows their balance sheet. They slog along quietly in the dark underbelly of the league and are nameless shadowy figures who own tiny bits and pieces of the play.

The giant jigsaw puzzle of this enterprise has never been pieced together though, on occasions, some foot soldiers have been trapped in the floodlights. The IPL betting industry is gigantic. No one knows if all the pieces can ever fall in place. Probably not. In almost every city and town where the league is telecast, there are thousands betting on the sly. Some bet on scores. Others on players. Some bet on teams. Others, on simply how the next ball or the next over would go. Men, women, kids, rich or poor, it doesn’t matter: they are all into it.

A KPMG report in 2012 assessed this business at Rs 300,000 crore. But that was 5 long years back. Today the league is much bigger. There’s been a 40% increase in viewership this year alone. Viewing time has increased by 57%. Today, it’s impossible to put a figure on the scale of the industry but it’s unofficially estimated at Rs 900,000 crore. Most followers of the game have at some time or the other, directly or indirectly, taken a bet on a match just for a lark. And there are the compulsives who bet on every match.

To beat the natural odds of the game, there are those who intervene on behalf of the bookies. You hear of hacked TV feeds, delayed telecast by a few seconds, charming honey traps, and the usual, unofficial commentators on the field who keep mumbling stuff into hidden phones. In short, the IPL may appear to exist for the love of cricket but it actually sustains a far bigger ecosystem-- the illegal betting industry. (Imagine what the Government could have made out of it if they legalized betting and taxed it-- instead of trying to take away chocolates and chewing gum from kids with 28% GST.)

Now, let’s look at the week’s other big event-- the Cannes Film Festival, the world’s most prestigious showcase for good cinema. It kicked off its 2017 run last week with a spectacular series of visuals of beautiful women wearing the most farfetched togs. The men around were mere arm candy. If you ask me it’s the world’s most subversive gender display where women hog all the limelight and men hang around on leashes, as coy as toy poodles. Getty Images alone has a team of 80 there, including fashion photographers, videographers, social media experts, picture editors, assignment editors and technicians.

To cover no, not really the film festival though that may be the ostensible reason; they are there for the spectacle of incredibly beautiful women in incredibly weird couture. This exclusive invitation-only event on the French Riviera started 70 years ago to celebrate cinema. Today, it’s the world’s biggest fashion runway. What happened to good cinema? Well, it’s there. (Like good cricket in the IPL.) This year Pedro Almodovar heads the jury. You can’t get bigger than that. But take a look at all the stuff coming out of Cannes and you will see how little of it has anything to do with film making. Or even Pedro.

India, which has traditionally pitched some of its best films at Cannes, is MIA this year. A FTII student’s short film is the only entry. But that has not stopped India from turning out in full regalia to showcase its gorgeous ladies. Yes, fashion is now the leitmotif of Cannes and we, too, have fallen in line. Yet there was a time not long ago when Neeraj Ghaywan won an award there for his debut film. Murali Nair was honoured with the Camera d’Or. And Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay got a standing ovation and the award. Look further back. There was Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, Mrinal Sen’s Kharij, Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zameen, Shantaram’s Amar Bhoopali and Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar which won the first Grand Prix in 1946.

Today, when we make more films than we’ve ever done, and far more expensively, we are not there. Not for cinematic excellence certainly. The world’s most prestigious film festival is now a tiring runway for fashion’s eccentricities and the industry’s gorgeous ladies. Glamour has overtaken serious cinema and whatever good is happening there in films is hugely under-reported. It’s time perhaps to look at Cannes as a beauty pageant, not the serious film festival it was once. Two big events, alas, both successful and famous; yet subverted by their own faulty ecosystems.

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